New restrictions on diesel trucks starts January 1. A rush to buy new diesel trucks is underway.
California’s Zero-Emissions Rule Triggers a Run on Diesel Rigs
The Wall Street Journal reports California’s Zero-Emissions Rule Triggers a Run on Diesel Rigs
The California rule will phase out the use of diesel trucks until the more than 30,000 diesel big rigs that now serve the state’s ports are banned by 2035.
The regulation is already proving a challenge for truckers across California, from the agricultural export hub at the Port of Oakland to the nation’s busiest gateway for containerized imports at the Southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Trucking executives say the state’s regulators are getting far out in front of the industry’s ability to deliver zero-emission rigs.
The technology underpinning electric vehicles is still developing, they say, and the zero-emission trucks are triple the cost of diesel trucks, while the vehicles and charging stations are in limited supply. “I have to think every trucker in California is doing all they can to get as many pre-mandate trucks in place as they possibly can,” said Kenny Vieth, president of ACT Research.
Production of the [electric] vehicles is so limited and the cost and complexity of running the trucks so high that there are fewer than 150 zero-emission trucks in service at the Southern California ports today, said Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association trade group. The most advanced of those trucks, say trucking executives, can’t travel more than a few hundred miles between charges, so they can only run short trips between ports and nearby rail yards and warehouses.
The electric trucks themselves are also proving a problem. Nikola and Volvo Trucks North America this summer recalled trucks because of defective parts thought to pose a fire risk. Jim Gillis, president of port trucker Pacific Drayage Services, said he is on his third recall since receiving six Volvo electric trucks in January. Gillis said that when a diesel truck needs repair it is usually in the shop for three to four days. When a $400,000 electric truck is recalled it is usually out of action for longer. “That’s an expensive asset to lose for three to four weeks,” he said.
Manufacturers and California Reach a Deal
On July 6, Cal Matters reported California and Manufacturers Strike Deal Over Zero-Emission Trucks.
California and major truck manufacturers announced a deal today that would avoid a legal battle over the state’s landmark mandate phasing out diesel big rigs and other trucks.
In return, the Air Resources Board will relax some near-term requirements for trucks to reduce emissions of a key ingredient of smog to more closely align with new federal standards.
The powerful Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association as well as 10 manufacturers, including Cummins, Inc., Daimler Truck North America, Volvo Group North America and Navistar, Inc. signed on to the deal.
What About the Truckers?
How nice of the manufacturers and the state to come to an agreement. But it seems like they left the truckers, especially the small independents, out of the discussion.
How many of them can afford to pay two or three times as much for a truck?
Once again, note the huge inflationary madness that the tag team of Biden and California have brought the nation.
‘Impossible’ and ‘Likely to Fail’
Please consider ‘Impossible’ and ‘likely to fail’? Or ‘putting lives over profits’? Behind California’s battle to electrify trucks
“The amount of chaos and dysfunction that is going to be created by this rule will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of the California Trucking Association, an industry trade group, told CalMatters. “The likelihood that it is going to fail pretty spectacularly is very high. It’s very unfortunate.”
Trucking companies and local government officials call the deadlines in the rule unachievable. They say the new technology still has major drawbacks, including the high cost of electric trucks and their low vehicle range. The state also has not yet developed a charging network to support electric trucks, and the existing chargers can take hours to recharge, industry officials say.
Under the proposal, in 2036, 100% of new sales of medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks must be zero emissions in California, scaling up from phased-in timelines that vary by the type of truck. The rules also would force companies that operate 50 or more trucks to gradually convert their fleets into electric or hydrogen models, reaching 100% zero-emissions by 2042, with these timelines also based on the type of truck.
The earliest requirements would be for drayage trucks, which carry cargo to and from the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland and cause severe air pollution in nearby communities. All of them must be converted to electric models by 2035, and new sales beginning in 2024 must be zero emissions.
“There are many of us in the drayage industry that run our trucks 400 plus miles a day,” Cory Peters, chief financial officer of Best Drayage, a trucking company based in the Central Valley, told the board. “Currently, there is no zero-emission truck available today that can make that trip. You are requiring that all new drayage trucks be zero emissions starting in less than nine months from now. This will have a devastating effect on Central Valley shippers who rely on getting their goods to the rest of the world.”
Local governments call the deadlines ‘impossible’
It’s not just the trucking industry that is vehemently opposed. Local governments are opposed, too, since they own truck fleets. With some exceptions, half of the specified truck purchases for public agencies must be zero emissions by 2024, ramping up to 100% by 2027.
“The vehicles don’t exist, the infrastructure does not exist, grid reliability is sketchy, there’s nothing to protect public agencies from price gouging,” said the League of California Cities and State association of Counties in a letter to the air board.
Golden Powers
It’s the Golden State’s Special Powers that allowed this bargain.
For decades, California has relied on the bureaucratic equivalent of a superpower: It has had special federal permission to make tougher air regulations than the U.S. government.
The origin of this dates back to the smog that began choking Los Angeles in the 1940s.
So when changes to the Clean Air Act decades ago stopped individual states from making their own tailpipe emissions rules, California got a pass. If California’s rules are just as tough, or tougher, than the federal ones, the EPA must grant it a waiver. There are only a few specific circumstances when the EPA can deny the waiver, including if it decides California is being “arbitrary and capricious,” or that California doesn’t actually need the waiver to address “compelling and extraordinary conditions.”
California still needs to ask the EPA for a waiver whenever it wants to make new rules for vehicle exhaust or change existing rules on the books. The state has received dozens of these waivers, covering everything from refrigerated truck trailers to ships at berth in California ports.
Obama sided with California in disputes. Trump reversed Obama. And then Biden promptly reversed Trump.
I suggest this needs to go to the Supreme Court which hopefully will put an end to this silliness.
It’s not that I am a big fan of diesel. In fact, I am no diesel fan at all. But you cannot double or triple costs on the industry when the infrastructure is not even in place.
If the manufacturers want to make a deal with the devil, OK fine. But the costs better not be prohibitive to the truckers.
Unfortunately, the independent truckers are trapped in this Faustian bargain they were not even a part of.
It would be more than a bit fitting if the truckers responded by refusing to make deliveries in California. Let that message roar 10-4.
Huge Backlash Against Climate Change Has Started
Please note The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards
Also, note A Huge Backlash Against Climate Change and Immigration Madness Has Started
The backlash cannot hit Biden and the state of California fast enough.
I’ve asked this before:
In this rush to eliminate the use of petroleum-based fuel what will happen with the petroleum distillates (i.e. gasoline/diesel) that are relegated to being hazardous waste byproducts of the refining process?
Good question Al, Will we flare of combustibles just to get rid of it. Perhaps all the other wonderful carbon based products will become more expensive without fuel as a byproduct.
At the rate the stores are closing in Cali, they won’t need many trucks anyway.
What a nuthouse. Everyday is a mew disaster. Just imagine Gavin being president. Another Trudeau.
Buy hair-gel companies.
Electric semis are coming. But the pace of introduction is so slow, that it will be decades before they make much of a difference. Which means more and more trucks running on diesel every year.
Got oil?
It’s slow, but it won’t take decades. Tesla is expanding their Nevada factory. They plan to make over 100k units/year. Battery manufacturing is likely the current bottleneck, but battery manufacturing capacity is rapidly going up every year and doesn’t seem like the trend will slow down any time soon.
There are currently 3 million semis and another 10.5 million straight trucks in the US. Even if Tesla could meet their lofty goal of 50k semis in 2024 (which they won’t), it would take decades to produce 3 million.
Tesla ramped up building electric cars at a speed that nobody believed, especially the short-sellers. They are at three million now. If the demand is there Tesla will deliver. Three million trucks can be made in much less time than you think.
I got oil but I short it every chance I can. DVN is rising again so I’m going to sell calls and try to get assigned to sell my shares. I may jump back in later.
There is already some data on how long it takes to electrify. Norway is a great example.
It took 10 years to go from 1% to 65% but it took a lot of pushing, subsidies and mandates so it can be done sooner.
link to time.com
I appreciate your “got oil” strategy but I will caution you again that oil can easily drop to $30 barrel if the right conditions exist with Opec, Russia, Venezuela and other factors such as deep recession. It’s best to have a long/short strategy with oil stocks in my opinion.
I appreciate your warning. Though I do trade a portion of my portfolio on a daily basis, thanks to the volatility that exists in today’s markets. I make a lot of money just from that. In addition, I am collecting over 7%/a in dividends. And I do shift my focus from one company to another on a frequent basis as one runs up, while the other lags.
I would also be very surprised if oil drops to $30 in the near future. There were several here who kept telling me that oil was going to $40 over the last year. Yet here we are at $90+. And those folks have mysteriously disappeared.
Still here PaPa
It will come quicker. Trucking is a very competitive business and shaving off a few tens of thousands of Dollars a year off of costs makes the trade compelling for owners.
I doubt it. There are currently 3 million semis and over 10 million straight trucks making deliveries in the US.
Tesla is aiming to produce 50k semis in 2024. And I highly doubt they will be able to do that. It will be 2 decades before the majority of delivery trucks are electric.
Or is that what you mean by “quicker”.
This isn’t just Tesla by their lonesome. There are other significant trucking companies electrifying now. Diesel demand will go down, diesel trucks are going to be scrapped out, new diesel sales of trucks will decrease, diesel fuel will not get cheaper and more than likely increase in price. Soon diesel truck scrappage will equal new diesel truck sales . Its all down hill from there.
You are correct. As significant numbers of electric semis are produced the number of diesel units will slowly decline. What we disagree on is the time frame. 3 million diesel semis today. Still 3 million in 2024. I’m guessing 2.8 million by 2030. My investment thesis on oil and gas is for the rest of this decade. The world will keep demanding “more” oil and gas every year this decade. Maybe by next decade you will begin to see a decline in demand for oil and gas worldwide. But I will have made a crap load of money by then.
Quicker means quicker than you think. You are thinking along a straight-line curve. I am thinking an exponential curve is more appropriate with this technology. When ICE took off early in the 20th century the adoption rate was quasi-exponential because they made economic sense. EVs are in the same configuration in my opinion. There are amazing parallels. If that holds the worldwide legacy car makers will have to merge to survive. In the end we might end up with only four car manufacturers in the world.
That’s what many said about online shopping in 1999. Exponential growth. And it was. From 0.0001%. By the time the market crashed in 2001, it was up to 0.001%.
The problem with exponential growth is how slow it grows at the beginning.
Its the same with self-driving. Many expected that we would all be in cars without a steering wheel by now.
People are always too optimistic about the impact of new tech. It will happen. But decades later than they think.
I have owned Two Big RV’s – class A’s and one had a 460 Ford and the other a Cummins Diesel.
The diesel is so far more advanced in terms of power delivery and fuel mileage. It is hands down the only Engine I would accept now.
I have noticed a few articles of battery run RVs. Power and economy is way better on battery.
This is Newsome becoming Obama with firearms. It was always said that Obama was the greatest firearms salesman in the country. He would speak (about new plans for draconian gun control) and firearms sales would take off.
aar15s for children are now available. Cool. We can now train mass killings at a younger age.
Pepsi has been buying and using Tesla semi’s and they love them. And once again comments about EV trucks are absurdly untrue. They don’t cost $400k. Closer to $250k and they’re heavily subsidized, so the costs are lower. I think Pepsi paid almost nothing for them. Their operational costs are far lower. Instead of paying $500 to fill up a tank, you pay about $200 for the same range. Plus the brakes will last a lot longer. And they can go uphill a lot faster. As far as waiting to charge, the truckers are required to take breaks and have limits on how long they can drive every day, so the waits don’t hurt their schedule.
The only thing holding back their widespread use is manufacturing capacity at this point.
“The only thing holding back their widespread use is manufacturing capacity at this point.”
And the other ultimate irony, all this manufacturing capacity depends on a structural & permanent increase in the use of fossil and fuels (diesel, etc.) for mining, refining & production.
link to thehonestsorcerer.substack.com
“The manufacturing of EVs take more minerals (nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper etc.) than their internal combustion engine counterparts. Since the mining and transportation of these minerals is done almost exclusively by diesel engines (which electric drive trains cannot replace due to the reasons above), the demand for diesel will actually increase with a wider adoption of electric vehicles. Knowing that the ratio of diesel and gasoline in any given barrel of oil is pretty much fixed, a rise in EV production volumes would thus give rise to oil demand, as paradoxical as it may sound”.
The supply chain is decarbonizing also. Tesla is one of the best at not using FF to manufacture.
What does that matter? The trucks cost what they cost regardless. No one buying them cares what went into making them.
Time to give us your solution to this problem.
“Closer to $250k and they’re heavily subsidized”
This is the whole problem. The subsidies need to cease for EV’s so that they either stand on their own or they fail until such time as they can directly compete.
The process of moving to EV’s is definitely underway but these subsidies are part of the reason we are getting all these ridiculous mandates about when things must go to electric because unrealistic timelines are being forecast.
Again, it all depends on the application. Pepsi uses these trucks in a small geographic area. That works; it will not work very well for long hauls. Nothing is a fix for everything. There are always tradeoffs. And, as I’ve mentioned, California, as usual for politicians, is not addressing the vast amount of new power to electrify its plans. Solar is not going to cut it, not even close. This means something must give. I can’t wait to hear what that will be.
Why won’t it work for long hauls? Pepsi regularly runs them for 10 hours/day. They can charge over 50% in 15 minutes.
Ten hours, on and off, on mainly city flat roads in short distances and close to support.
Long haul requires massive power spikes for undulating road conditions and changing weather, especially extreme cold. Drive through Colorado or other hilly states with heavy-duty loads in isolated areas, and there are a lot in America; it’s big. You will not be seeing ten hours of power, maybe half that, maybe less.
ICE are highly efficient for longer hauls and other fuel sources have potential to replace diesel. Toyota is doing great work in that area.
Electric is not the end-all. It has some practical applications.
EV trucks are more efficient going up and down hills. They use regenerative braking and capture over 70% of the energy used to go uphill. And the brakes don’t get any wear going downhill.
Do you seriously think Totoya’s hydrogen vehicles have a future? Their misguided ideas have likely doomed much of the Japanese car industry.
Why don’t you do some research before posting?
Actually, I can’t wait for States to Mandate “Self driving Electric Trucks” ( I don’t know why) but it’s coming, it’s in the wind …..and the Mandate will say….”It’s for the Public Safety” ?????
Everything is subsidized. Oil and gas take in far more subsidies than EVs.
link to imf.org
“Everything is subsidized. Oil and gas take in far more subsidies than EVs.”
The article states refers to environmental costs (not sure how they determine that?), not to any actual subsidies given directly to energy.
Ironically all the renewables are 100% dependent on a permanet and structural increase in fossil fuel usage (majority being done outside the United States). There is no reduction in environmental costs from renewable energy?
Wonder what the environmental costs are for that 500,000 lbs or earth to be processed for that 1000 lb EV battery in your car or the 2.8 MT of earth to be processed and refined for that Pepsi truck battery?
Even without the environmental part, it’s still a lot more then EVs.
Why do you keep bringing up the environmental costs of how things are made? Gas cars have a far higher negative environmental impact than renewables and EVs and it has no effect on the economic benefits of buying and operating an EV.
“Why do you keep bringing up the environmental costs of how things are made?”
Kidhorn, you posted the article regarding subsidies but fail to mention that the supposed subsidies are environmental costs, (which I dont know how they figure out).
Just for reference, 2800 MT = 6.2 million pounds of earth that have to be mined & processed to make that 4 ton truck battery.
And you get in a fluster when someone mentions that there are environmental costs to that 6.2 million pounds of earth processing.
There are no environmental costs to renewables. And to top it off, renewables are 100% dependent on fossil fuels. When fossil fuels decline or rise in price, it is magnified in renewables requiring even greater subsidies.
Well if someone wants to give me a subsidy to use something I already would use anyway then I would have to be blind not to accept the subsidy. I know myself not to have the moral fortitude to refuse free money when given to me wrapped up in blue ribbon.
“The only thing holding back their widespread use is manufacturing capacity at this point.”
Just for a reference point, 500,000 lbs of earth are mined and processed for your 1000 lb ev battery.
That Pepsi truck Ev battery requires 2800 MT of earth to be mined and processed and again all done outside the United States requiring a permanent and structural increase in fossil fuels (coal, diesel, etc.)
link to realclearenergy.org.
“Each such battery will also require 2,800 MT—500 times its weight—of earth, on average, moved to access the metals required [6].”
“The only thing holding back their widespread use is manufacturing capacity at this point.”
Kidhorn, Im not sure how many diesel trucks are in California? Can you provide me with an estimate of the increased manufacturing capacity that is required for countries outside the United States to ramp up their manufacturing capacity (fossil fuel useage) that is holding up their widespread use? Im not even gonna get into the electrical capacity needed to power a fleet of EV trucks>
(x number of trucks in California) x (2800 MT of earth processed/battery)?
I don’t understand how what is holding up capacity somehow negates the fact that manufacturing capacity is holding things up. If they could manufacture 100k units/year, they would sell them all. But they can’t right now. And I don’t get how the reason why they can’t is relevant to what I wrote.
Herculean task mandated by an incompetent state government who were elected by feeble minded citizens. Why not censor out what Bobby thumbed down on the way to New Orleans while they’re at it….meh. Idiots.
And yet is has the highest GDP in the U.S. at $3.5 trillion. No other state comes close. I guess we need more feeble minded citizens.
Perhaps you would like to revise that statement. Alaska and North Dakota are right on your ass&.
link to statista.com
Lol. And what companies in North Dakota are there to invest in? Are you going to move there to capture that GDP/person? My context is always profit and North Dakota and Alaska are ONLY on the list because of oil. I already own some oil stocks and none of them produce in ND or AK.
The entire world is dependent on Apple, Google, Facebook all created by feeble minded California citizens. And ChatGPT AI, the one the world is all after now, is based in California too.
It’s the reason 40 million people live in CA and the population of ND is 750k.
“The entire world is dependent on Apple, Google, Facebook all created by feeble minded California citizens. And ChatGPT AI, the one the world is all after now, is based in California too.”
And all reliant on fossil fuels for their production & existence.
Just to clarify, Facebook was created by Harvard students, not Californians.
And the world is most definitely not dependent on Apple and Google. There are and always have been alternatives to both so they could disappear tomorrow and nothing much would change other than for the fanboi’s of those companies.
@TexasTim65
And the Harvard (Boston) students could have chosen anywhere to make Facebook their corporate HQ and they chose California. Hmmm…..
As for google and apple, I’ve traveled to 40 countries and every time I ride an Uber they use Google or Apple phones as well as their mapping apps.
There are very little alternatives if you are being intellectually honest with youself.
Thank you for making my argument. California has a large population and that population is inefficient. You have a massive amount of dead weight, which is why you have so many social problems. Every dollar of GDP is plagued by homelessness, crime, and poverty. California, as a whole, is extremely inefficient. It causes so many unproductive dollars that are part of its GDP. That is why GDP per population can be a better measure.
@MPO45v2
Companies relocate all the time. Just because Tesla relocated to Austin doesn’t make Texas some kind of car mecca any more than Facebook relocating to California makes them some kind of social media mecca.
Forgot to mention that you know perfectly well why California has a 40 million population and North Dakota has only a few hundred K. If you can’t figure it out, just go outside in December or January for 5 minutes 🙂
As far as alternatives go, yes the market for phones is small. Or rather phone operating systems since there are lots of actual phone manufacturers (they just use Google’s phone O/S since it’s free which means generates no money for Google). But that’s not really much different than say the car industry. There aren’t many players there either and if Ford went away, everyone would just buy another some other car makers car in the same way that if Apple disappeared tomorrow everyone could just get a Samsung or some other phone. In other words there is absolutely nothing unique about them having their HQ in California and they could move their HQ anywhere tomorrow and nothing would change in their bottom line.
It also has the highest wealth disparity. Sure, there are a handful of trillion dollar companies that drive the big GDP number, but the middle class in California has been destroyed and the poor are slipping into homelessness in ever increasing numbers. It has the largest net outflow of (legal) citizens so it should hardly be held up as a successful model for other states. I know, I lived there for 56 years and escaped 3 years ago to a much better place.
You and Phil are not getting the point. All I care about are the PROFITS the companies in California are making so I can get my cut via investing in stocks or spacs or bonds or whatever.
California is a fountain of money for INVESTORS and that’s what I care about.
There is nothing to invest in Alaska or North Dakota or probably wherever you moved to…
I don’t live in California and I stated I would avoid the state myself. Got it?
Not invest. Too bad you missed the oil play in ND. Mr Obama dissed SD too, just like you. Me, I bought a few oil leases. Very small but very lucrative. My friend bought raw land around small cities close to oil lease areas. 30 times on his cash in a few years. Hotel chains were the buyers.
Sure California offers investment deals because they have a tech edge. It’s now going away to Texas.
Again, the comments here are mainly about the Citizen’s of the state and how this state is causing more issues than settling.
“Sure California offers investment deals because they have a tech edge. It’s now going away to Texas. ”
Yes, liberal Austin Texas which is why I’m looking at properties there and have been.
The oil leases in ND or SD are flash in the pan profits that will evaporate as soon as electrification takes hold but good for you on your profits. Why weren’t you posting about that opportunity here for others to invest? Just being selfish? Greedy? Seems to coincide with your political views….lol.
MPO
Which state has the highest debt rate?link to statista.com
I know it’s a big state but the debt is nothing to scoff at especially with companies and people leaving.
Logic would have made it two states as happened with the other territories which became states. The Bay are was dominated by the Anglos but the southern part was dominated by the former Mexicans so they stuck the north and south together to keep California voting Anglo. Not speculation but fact. If California had been divided it would have been two normal states instead of the aberration it has become.
Please, Don’t give anyone in this present administration Credit (State or Federal) for California’s wealth !!!!!
the feeble minded are ones who can’t see an oportunity of ditching diesel. Clean energy systems are going to make a killing.
They’ll definitely kill a lot of affordable lifestyles in the short and medium terms.
Personally, I do not care if trains are diesel or electric. China has about 50,000 km of high speed electric trains, but I cannot invest in them.
Could you please provide a few company names that you believe will make a killing from clean energy? I hold a small handful of shares of many clean energy companies. So far the results have been mostly poor; particularly when compared to my oil and gas investments.
Define “clean energy”. In my opinion the thing closest to “clean energy” is nuclear. All others are about as clean as a sponge in an ancient Roman lavatory.
You missed out on Tesla? Some people are rich from being in on the ground floor.
I made a lot from Tesla. I was primarily invested in tech up till I switched heavily into oil and gas around 3 years ago.
How about you? Have you profited from your clean energy companies? I am looking for investment ideas and you never give any.
Thanks for the post Mish. I have been eyeing the railroad companies for a while as profitunities since they will be the obvious winners of this situation so time to position accordingly. I guess Buffett saw this coming in 2009 which is why he bought BSNF.
Time to board the money train….choo! choo! (pun intended)
A further irony. Trains run on diesel.
Electric is quite possible with trains. It already exists.
yes, but you need to install overhead lines, and obviously have the electrical generation capacity
I train car of batteries can power the train for a 150 miles.
Diesel trains have to have their tanks filled up. Overhead lines do the same thing except in just-in-time.
And, to go full circle, those lines need to be charged by generation, which uses…drumroll……diesel, coal, or hydronic. Mostly coal or natural gas.
“yes, but you need to install overhead lines, and obviously have the electrical generation capacity”
Ditto electrical cars, for any meaningful distance extraurban use.
He bought BSNF because at the same time he bribed Obama (and later Biden) to nix the Keystone pipeline so that his railroad could deliver the tarsands oil from Canada to Texas to be refined.
If you look at the rail map for BSNF that’s essentially their business (the Texas/Western Canada corridor) so for the rail line to be profitable he needed Keystone to be nixed.
Yep
It’s Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe. BNSF. Not BSNF!
Aren’t they heavily unionized?
BNSF
Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Locomotives are Diesel powered but the RR may have a option because they haul much more in a single freight Train???? Or maybe they will go back to steam power and still dirty the air ????? However, your idea has merit ……
Mish,
You had me at ‘California’.
Waiting for a 9.5 to make it go away.
problem is to many former californians have infected red states
Outlaw avocado toast and they won’t come.
Without diesel, nothing would get done.
if you want power then diesel is best way
bang for buck until nazi epa came in
Battery electric beats diesel economically and power wise.
Seriously, dude, do you get out much? Do you understand the practical nature of engineering and why electricity only has specific practical applications? I have no problem with electrical energy when applicable. A train has both diesel and electric. There is no way a train can use batteries, and wiring for electricity is crazy, so diesel generation is the perfect balance.
Caterpillar earth movers as electric? You must know it would be nonproductive. Tesla’s long haul truck tests with Lays potato chips as a load. It’s not going to work for heavy loads.
Efficient electric? Only if power is available and cheap enough and you can access the application. Logging trucks, for example, are in remote areas.
I can go on for hours with examples. Then you must realize we don’t have sufficient, not even close, enough power generation. Electrifying America is going to take twice, that is minimum, the energy to operate transportation. That does not include working applications, as I explained above. California turns off power regularly, and electric transportation is not a big thing yet. The infrastructure for electricity is pathetic, if not laughable. The cart is before the electric horse, as usual with ignorant politicians
Pepsi is hauling beverages.
Not in a 52 goot trailer.
Let me revise my comment.
“PepsiCo tasked the Teslas with short-haul and long-haul delivery trips. While the majority of the fleet covers under 100 miles regularly, three Semis cover up to 450 miles, which in theory is achievable as Tesla claims an estimated range of 500 miles on a single charge.Sep 12, 2023”
Damn them and their CO2 polluting creating products.
There are plans for battery powered airplanes. Even commercial airliners. Pretty sure battery powered trains will exist.
There have been plans for perpetual motion machines and mechanical turks since the dawn of time.
People only pay attention to the cranks, at exactly those moments in history when near all societal wealth have been forcefully transferred: From the (diesel burning….) competent industrialists and workers who created the wealth. And to rank, genuine idiots who never built anything, never created anything, nor ever understood anything. The latter being a hard prerequisite for belief in both perpetual motion and mechanical turks, whether attempted sold as “battery powered” and “AI” or not.
There is room for both. If truckers find electric trucks better they will use them. If not they won’t. Hard to say how it will turn out but electric trucking is in its infancy where diesel trucking is as mature technology. We will see where it will lead. Since trucking works on razor-thin margins we should see soon which will prevail.
Battery semis have a lot less cost of operation than diesels. Its going to be an obvious advantage for batteries.
Teslas first test for the public was 500 miles with 82,000 lbs. They did it and will keep on doing it.
CAL Train on the Peninsula in the SF Bay Area of CA is being electrified and undiselfied.
PG&E, our main electric generator in Northern CA is warning of big increases in electric costs come this fall, depending on how much the state PUC allows rates to increase. They need the increase they claim to bury electric lines to prevent fires and the usual “upgrades”.
People dependent on generated electric to power their home, appliances or cars are going to be paying through the nose.
Why do you need more power. You think a Mack truck doesn’t have enough power??? It’s so heavy you can only go 100 miles. I suspect all trucks will just be stationed in Nevada and sold in Nevada where all industry goes to compensate for CA’s deliberate attempts to commit suicide
They should buy a Tesla instead. It has about 500 miles of range.
link to tesla.com
Not sure if serious
Remember the history of this stupidity. Coastal California gave us catalytic convertors nationwide to solve a local issue caused by high torque reving diesel garbage trucks, not gas engines. Coastal CA is pinned against mountains. Smog would develop in the valley since they have been growing oranges or even before. So California and the rest of the US gave up fuel efficiency and reliability with increased costs to satisfy a specific location’s geographic issue. It is time for CA to split in two. The rights of the other California and soon others are being trampled by the majority that live in a valley surrounded by mountains. Does this sound asinine?
Say Goodbye to California…..The liberal administration is cutting their own throat !!! Transportation fleets will adapt and move their Shipping points out of State….(I can vision ports in California) with miles of High Rise stacked Containers and Anchored ships packed to the Horizon waiting to unload without trucks to move them to Retail/wholesale warehouses for distribution……Restrictions cut both ways, Truckers could cripple the states revenue ?????